Tesla's Texas factory opened, and Cybertruck mass production finally pressed the start button

On April 8, Tesla CEO Elon Musk was particularly excited. On this day, Tesla's Giga Texas Giga Texas Giga Factory in Austin, Texas, officially announced its opening.

In order to welcome this gorgeous opening ball, Musk wore a black casual suit and black sunglasses to the stage, and he also specially chose a cowboy hat to wear on his head, which is a typical symbol of the western cowboy image. This outfit allowed him to blend in with the atmosphere of the scene.

Musk seems to have an ability to get acquainted with how to mingle with people. When the Shanghai Gigafactory and the Berlin Girberium opened, he wore a suit on stage because there were high-level government executives in attendance. Today's Giga Texas opening ceremony is more like a party prepared by Tesla for fans, and Musk's dress is naturally much happier.

Musk took to the stage with Tesla's original Rodaster this time, and left the stage with a Cyber truck. This is Tesla's first car in history and the first car in the future to appear on one stage at the same time.

These small details reflect Musk's meticulous preparation for this event, and he wants to tell people around the world that Tesla will maintain lasting vitality with excellent products, both in the past and in the future.

And everything shown in this event is the embodiment of Tesla's strong vitality in the future.

Six global plants across 3 continents

Giga Texas Super Engineering is Tesla's fourth vehicle manufacturing plant and the sixth across three continents. Two weeks ago, the $5.5 billion Berlin plant was announced; the $2.5 billion Shanghai Gigafactory opened in early 2020; and the first vehicle manufacturing plant, the Fremont Gigafact, was operational as early as 2020.

In addition, Tesla owns a gigafactory in Buffalo, New York, USA, and a gigafactory that produces batteries in Nevada.

Musk said that the capacity of the Texas factory will quickly increase to 1 million vehicles per year, which also allows Tesla's annual production capacity to double to more than 2 million vehicles. Tesla has previously said it will continue to expand factory capacity in California and Shanghai to meet its annual sales growth target of 50 percent.

However, there are always some problems in the process, like tesla encountered a few years ago in the Model 3 capacity climb difficulties. At that time, Tesla was able to overcome the problem through its own willpower, and now it has to face the industry problems of supply chain shortages and rising raw materials and forced factories to stop production, which may not be solved in a short period of time by itself.

In China, Tesla's two largest markets, the United States, a long-endurance Model Y is now booked, and it will take up to 20 weeks to pick up in China, and even until 2023 in the United States. It can be seen that the primary problem in front of Tesla is not insufficient demand, but the inability to supply quantities.

The Berlin plant, which opened two weeks ago, is designed for an annual production capacity of 500,000 units, but when it first opened, it had a weekly production capacity of only 200 units, and the target weekly production capacity is 5,000 units by the end of the year. JPMorgan expects the Berlin plant to produce about 54,000 vehicles in 2022, 280,000 by 2023 and 500,000 by 2025.

It can be seen that although the opening of the Austin factory makes people look forward to Tesla's grand global strategic deployment, it remains to be seen whether it can solve the current urgent needs.

Musk has proposed that Tesla will achieve the goal of selling 20 million cars a year by 2030. Now there are 8 years to go before 2030, from the current speed of factory construction, Musk's goal of 20 million vehicles is still a dream?

Semi Truck and Roadster2 and Cyberruck finally pressed the start button

Musk said that the Giga Texas Super Factory is the world's most advanced vehicle manufacturing plant, which not only has a front-and-rear body integrated die-casting production process that can reduce a large number of parts and reduce costs, but also has a 4680 battery cell production line and a structural battery pack assembly line.

Tesla showed in detail the one-piece die-cast front body and the one-piece die-cast rear body at the scene. This production process not only greatly reduces the number of robots required for traditional manufacturing, but also shortens the production time. A die-casting can be produced in just 16 seconds, while a car can be produced in 45 seconds. This is probably a new record in the vehicle manufacturing industry.

Tesla also demonstrated in detail the 4680 battery assembly process from the beginning of winding to the assembly of the structural battery pack. It said the 4680 battery was manufactured at a Gigabit plant in Texas, reducing the cost per kilowatt-hour. Tesla has everything it needs under one roof — a fully integrated process for producing and assembling assembly lines of high-capacity structural battery packs. The structural package greatly reduces the number of parts used in battery packs and cars, making the assembly line less than half of the previous factory.

Image source network

Interestingly, Tesla demonstrated a new assembly process for connecting battery packs and front seats, which is the first time in the vehicle manufacturing industry.

However, Tesla did not say how much the 4680 battery can reduce the cost. According to previous information, the energy density of the 4680 battery has increased by 5 times, the cruising range has increased by 16%, the output power has increased by 6 times, and the cost has been reduced by 14%.

Tesla is expected to produce a low-priced version of the Model Y at its Texas plant in response to increasing competition from competitors. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently announced the certification of two model Models Y, which have a range of 244 miles and 279 miles, respectively, compared with the current Model Y's range of 330 miles.

Therefore, what are the advantages of the 4680 version of Model Y remains to be verified.

The good news is that Musk has finally unveiled a schedule for semi trucks and Roadster2 and Cybertronuck mass production, which will begin production at the Texas plant in 2023. However, Musk has vowed that Cyberruck will be mass-produced in 2021, but in the end it has been announced that it has been postponed continuously. This time, if you jump the ticket again, it is also expected.

One More Thing

Remember the humanoid robot that Tesla debuted on AI Day last year? Now it has new news.

Musk said the humanoid robot Optimus could be put into mass production as early as next year. Speaking about the priorities of the "Tesla Bot" project, Musk said the company could do it by leveraging existing work and parts of the development of self-driving technology. "If Tesla doesn't do it, someone else will." Musk said.

Musk also said that it will subvert our perception of economic activity and that it will be able to do anything that humans don't want to do. "We're going to make sure it's safe, and it's going to change the world even more than cars." Musk is confident in the prospects of a humanoid robot under development at Tesla.

Previously, he said that the biggest role of "Optimus" is to solve the problem of labor shortage in the current society, and robots can carry certain parts in factories.

Musk also announced another brand new plan for Tesla, where they will develop a futuristic looking robo-taxi. The car will join Tesla's lineup of electric cars, but will be strictly used for taxi services.

However, Musk did not give a specific mass production schedule for this driverless taxi, perhaps another pie. He stressed that Tesla's focus in 2022 is to scale up operations to increase production, and Giga Texas will be key to achieving this goal.